AMD, Citi, Limited, Morgan Stanley, Sovereign

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Shares of the following companies were among the notable movers in the U.S. stock market on Monday:

Advancers

Abbott
ABT, -2.08%
rose 9.6% after the company said it plans to buy back as much as $5 billion of its common stock.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
AMD, -7.50%
added 10.5% after it said Monday the U.S. Department of Justice closed its investigation into ATI Technologies' pricing and marketing practices in the sale of graphics processing units. AMD disclosed on Dec. 1, 2006, that ATI had received a subpoena from the Justice Department. AMD acquired ATI Technologies in July 2006 in a deal valued at $5.4 billion.

Apple Inc.
AAPL, -3.96%
rose 14.1% after it was upgraded to an outperform, or buy, rating by Sanford Bernstein on Monday following a sharp sell-off of the company's shares. The stock has fallen more than 40% in the past six weeks. In a note to clients, analyst Toni Sacconaghi said the stock is now "overly discounted," and that the company's short-term financials are likely to remain strong despite an economic slowdown.

Bank of America Corp.
BAC, +0.00%
rose 9.2%. Analysts at Stifel Nicolaus on Monday upgraded shares of the bank to buy from hold and established a target price of $30. Stifel cut its 2008 and 2009 profit estimates for the bank, but said the recent pullback in the shares sets up the risk and reward it has been looking for.

Citigroup Inc.
C, -0.51%
added 11.6%. Its ratings are on review for possible downgrade at both Standard & Poor's and Moody's after the bank lost its bid for Wachovia. The review "reflects our concerns about Citigroup's exposures to further losses on the market-disrupted assets and asset risk in its consumer loan portfolios in the U.S. Citigroup has about $100 billion of residential and commercial mortgage-related securities, leveraged loans, and auction-rate securities," S&P said in a statement.

Cisco Systems Inc.
CSCO, -1.29%
rose 11.8% after an analyst upgraded the stock and called the tech giant "a survivor and, in the long term, a winner from this crisis." See full story.

GM
GM, -0.20%
soared 33.7%. GM and Chrysler have been in early talks about a merger, as two of the largest U.S. carmakers seek ways to cut costs in the face of a sales slump. Read the article.

International Rectifier Corp.
IRF, +125.00%
rose 10.7% after Vishay Intertechnology Inc.
VSH, -2.26%
said Monday that it has ended its bid to acquire International Rectifier and will return tendered shares to their holders. "As we have consistently said, we cannot pursue our proposal in the face of opposition from a board of directors that has refused to engage in any discussion with us regarding our offer," Vishay said in a news release. On Sept. 29, Vishay formally began a hostile bid for International Rectifier, announcing a tender offer to buy the company for $23 a share.

Limited Brands,
LTD, -6.62%
the Columbus, Ohio, retailer, plans to buy back as much as $250 million of stock.

Morgan Stanley
MS, +0.63%
skyrocketed 87.0% after Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. on Monday said it closed on a $9 billion equity investment in Morgan Stanley, giving it a 21% ownership stake. Mitsubishi
MTU, +0.00%
acquired $7.8 billion of perpetual non-cumulative convertible preferred stock with a 10% dividend and a conversion price of $25.25 a share. See full story.

Park-Ohio Holdings Corp.
PKOH, -0.75%
rose 13.8%. The Cleveland provider of supply-chain-logistics services and manufacturer of engineered products cut its full-year earnings estimate, "reflecting unprecedented weakness and volatility in the automotive markets." The company now expects to earn $1.45 to $1.50 a share in 2008; in May, when it reported first-quarter earnings, it estimated $2.10 to $2.25. Park-Ohio plans to take $15 million of non-cash fourth-quarter charges tied to its auto-related business.

Royal Philips Electronics
PHG, -0.95%
(00953) erased earlier losses. Europe's largest consumer electronics firm, on Monday posted an 8% increase in third-quarter profit, boosted by an exceptional gain, but reported weaker sales and cautioned that demand may not recover in the fourth quarter. Read the article.

Tesoro Corp.
TSO, +0.00%
rose 29.4%. It expects third-quarter earnings per share in the range of $1.70 to $1.90, which includes a last-in-first-out benefit of 29 cents a share.

Travelers Cos.
TRV, +1.36%
was up 17.7%. On Monday it said its initial estimate for third-quarter catastrophe losses, primarily due to hurricanes Ike, Gustav and Dolly, is about $1.05 billion pre-tax, or $690 million after tax. Travelers also unveiled net realized investment losses for the quarter of $170 million pre-tax, or $115 million after tax. It said that figure included impairments of $67 million pre-tax, or $44 million after tax, due to securities issued by Lehman Brothers.
LEHMQ

Wachovia Corp.
WB, -4.14%
rose 13.6%. Its acquisition by Wells Fargo was approved by the Federal Reserve, the Fed said on Sunday. Wachovia said on Friday that it would issue preferred shares as part of its agreement with Wells Fargo
WFC, +0.72%
without the usual shareholders' approval, in a bid to proceed with the merger as soon as possible.

Decliners

British Airways
BAIRY
(BAY) fell. Dresdner Kleinwort raised its rating on Europe's third-largest flag carrier to buy from hold. It said the issues the airline faces, such as high oil prices and falling premium passenger traffic, have been largely priced in and ignore the positives from potential industry capacity reductions and mergers and acquisitions. The broker told clients that while the completion of a merger with Spanish airline Iberia or anti-trust immunity with American Airlines on the North Atlantic are not assured, both offer substantial medium-term synergy opportunities.

Qimonda,
QI, +2.00%
the Munich memory-chip maker, reversed earlier gains. It plans to restructure itself and to sell its 35.6% stake in Inotera Memories, a venture with Nanya Technology, to Micron
MU, -6.62%
for $400 million in cash. Qimonda will book a loss of 300 million euros on the sale. Qimonda also plans to ramp down manufacturing at its 200mm facility in Richmond by January 2009 and shut its back-end component and module manufacturing in Dresden, Germany, by March 2009.

Sears Holdings Corp.:
SHLD, -0.52%
Michael Collins, who just joined the retailer as senior vice president of finance, will succeed J. Miles Reidy as chief financial officer before the end of the fiscal year. The Hoffmann Estates, Ill., parent of the Sears and Kmart retail chains said Reidy will leave later in the year because of a family issue. Collins comes to Sears after serving as a senior vice president at General Electric Corp.'s
GE, -2.24%
NBC Universal.

Sovereign Bancorp
SOV, +9.56%
reversed earlier gains, in volatile trading. Spain's Banco Santander said on Monday it's in talks to buy the U.S. regional bank. In a terse one-sentence statement to the Spanish regulator, Santander confirmed media speculation that it would buy out Sovereign (but said no deal has been reached. See full story.

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